Sources references links contacts – dyes

Web sites, books, where to get dyes, things to do with natural dyes.

Introduction

There are many dye plants that grow wild or in the garden in temperate latitudes. Some of the parts that hold the dye pigments are seasonal – for example, various berries and flowers. Others – like rhubarb and dock roots – can be sampled at any time.

Some of the traditional dye plants are now rare or live in sensitive habitats. So sampling from the wild should be done with consideration and should not be done at all in near-natural habitats.

The best way is to grow the plants in a garden. Weeds such as nettle and dock do not need much help, and rhubarb lasts for years unaided, but many of the species listed on this site grow easily from seed. The Living Field garden keeps a collection of around 20 dye plants.

The plants can be cut and boiled according to the various instructions in the web (e.g. see wildcolours). In most cases, no specialist equipment is needed other than boiling water and a pan. And the smells rarely last – there is no need these days to have buckets of urine standing aound.

To fix dyes, for example in yarn and cloth, you will need to work with additives and mordants, which can be bought along with a range of tropical dyestuffs from suppliers.

Working with dyes is fun – using natural material to create something useful – the same as making bere bannocks or oatcakes from local grain or meal, and then eating them. Once you get hooked …

Images above are of a small dyeing and weaving works near Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), taken February 2015 (Squire). The dyes are heated in the metal bowl and the fabric immersed for the required period. The name of the blue dye was not discovered but natural and manufactured dyes were sometimes used together. Weaving was by hand-loom, undyed white fibre shown top right and blue-dyed fibre, bottom.

Advice and supply

Thanks to wildcolours for their advice and attention to detail in providing the Living Field with dyed wools, dyestuffs and various materials and extracts.

Museums and other places to visit

Natural dyes do not tend to be the subject of whole museums and heritage centres as are the natural fibres. However, something on colouring fabrics can be found in many of the ‘places to visit’ in the 5000 Years Fibres pages.

Several photographs on the Dyes pages were taken at two places where hand-dyeing is still practiced commercially:

Souk des teintures, Marrakech Morocco

Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar) also for hand weaving

At both locations, dyestuffs were sometime mixed in the vat or pan; and from what could be understood, the dyers sometimes mixed plant-based and ‘metallic’ dyes to get their desired colour.

Books, references and web links

The following reference list is not intended to be complete or authoritative, but indicates some of the papers and books used to inform the dyes pages.

Web resources

See www.wildcolours.co.uk for more comprehensive references lists of dye plants and dying relevant to Britain and places overseas.

Thirsk J. 1997. Alternative agriculture. A history from the Black Death to the present day. Oxford University Press. 365 pages. ISBN 0-19-820662-3. [For commercial growing of dye plants in Britain.]

See also Wildflower Europe and Plantlife links above.

Madder – Turkey red

Turkey red dye from madder raised much interest in north-west Europe in the 1700s and 1800s because of the striking depth and durability of the pigment and then the complex process needed to dye and fix colour from the raw material.

Burkhill IH. 1935. A dictionary of the economic products of the Malay Peninsular. Reprinted 1966, published on behalf of the Governments of Malaysia and Singapore by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Two volumes, 2444 pages. [Two tomes weighing several pounds that are repeatedly found to be authoritative on useful tropical plants.]

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